A Sheep of a Solution

New Zealand winemaker Peter Yealands has never been sheepish about his aims to have the greenest vineyard in the world. His latest step toward that goal: sheep.

Yealands is importing special miniature versions of the farmyard favorite — called "baby doll" sheep, barely a foot and a half high — to keep the grass shorn. It's a triple-saving of fuel, time and money.

He told New Zealand's National Business Review: “We have to mow the vineyard about eight to 12 times a year and you’re talking about 3500 kilometres to travel around the 1000 hectare vineyard. To do this, we have seven tractors mowing all the time and that burns a hell of a lot of fuel.”

As Kermit the Frog knows all too well, it's not easy being green. Yealands had to go through a zoo's worth of animals to find suitable live lawnmowers.

Chickens? "You would need millions," he told NBR.

Geese? "They left too many droppings behind."

“We had some success with some big guinea pigs. We reared a few, contained them in a little six-inch fence and built little huts for them and that worked well. And then the hawks moved in and we ended up with most of Marlborough’s hawks hanging around our vineyard, so that didn’t work.”

Finally he settled on sheep, but had to beg an Australian breeder to bump him to the top of the waiting list. Yealand is starting with 10 of the little guys, but has plans to eventually have 10,000. Ideally, the sheep will improve the lawn, and the number of tourists flocking to his vineyard.

He told NBR, "They’re like little bags of meat on legs, but they’re also just so bloody cute. They look a little like koalas at that size."

Photo courtesy of cgoodwin, via Commons Wikimedia.